Pubs - or lack of them

Same in Knaresborough. Back in the mid/late 80s when I first started going out there was about 40 pubs, I'll bet there's not even half that now.

 

Cross Keys went many years ago ...the pub trade was still healthy at that time...I was surprised about the Bull though.

 

First pub I ever went in with my old man, Beryl's hubby Harold Hodgson was the landlord...my old man was a regular when it was Barnsley Bitter....stopped going in soon after the switch to keg John Smith's.

 

The Coach & Horses shouldn't have gone either, Geoff Salmons was going to buy it but he wanted planning permission to put a restaurant on the back, unfortunately BMBC turned him down.

 

We did the enhanced version of that...Bridge Inn...Cross Keys...Rising Sun...Hewer & Brewer...George...Sportsman...the Drop...Wat Tyler...Miners Arms...Railway...and then take a left and finish at The Countryman. I admit I had to drop onto shandy at strategic points where the beer was sh**e.

 

Where’s that?

 

As someone who tried to run a leasehold pub. I'll tell you exactly why they've disappeared or are disappearing the fault lies at the door of the brewery's / pub leasing companies (often the same parent company). They screw their tenants with enormous rents and make them upkeep their run down buildings, then charge them top rates for their beer etc The breweries then do deals with the tenants competition to sell them cheap beer (ironically subsidized by the tenants) which kills the trade in the pub, why would you buy say a pint of Johns Smith for £4.00 in a leased pub when you can buy the same pint in a WMC for £2.00.Then once they've run out of gullible people to take on the lease for a pub they knock it down and build houses on the land. The big brewers just want to be able to sell there beer to supermarkets and clubs and liquidate their Pub estates to pay dividends to share holders.